G1 Therapeutics prices IPO

G1 Therapeutics Inc., the Research Triangle Park-based biotechnology company that announced plans to launch an initial public offering last month, has revealed more details about its first public stock offering.

The company, which focuses on developing cancer treatments, revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday that it hopes to raise between $93.75 million and $106.25 million from the offering.

In its amended filing, G1 said it would issue 6.25 million shares on the Nasdaq stock market, pricing its shares between $15 and $17 per share. The company plans to trade under the symbol “GTHX.” The filing is a preliminary prospectus and could still change before the company begins selling its stock. No date has been set for the IPO.

While G1 has no approved cancer drugs on the market, the company said it has two promising candidates in its pipeline. It is developing an intravenous drug, called trilaciclib, to protect the bone marrow and immune systems of cancer patients receiving chemotherapy as well as an oral drug to stifle the cell division of breast cancer tumors.

Digital Access for only $0.99

The company plans to use approximately $45 million of the capital raise to advance trilaciclib, and a combined $35 million for two other drugs.

G1 was founded in 2008 as G0 and renamed in 2012. Last year, the company raised $47 million in a Series C financing round, bringing its total funding to $93 million since 2012. Its investors include Hatteras Venture Partners, the Durham firm that provided G1 with $600,000 in seed money in 2012 and has participated in all three subsequent financing rounds.

Trilaciclib is in Phase 2 trials and the oral drug, G1T38, is in Phase 1 trials. The capital from the IPO will be used to fund the development of those two clinical-stage candidates as well as earlier stage drugs.

G1’s biggest stockholder is the Hatteras firm, which controlled nearly 20 percent of the company’s shares before the offering. It would own a little more than 15 percent of the company’s shares after the IPO, according to the filing.

The company has 31 employees, according to its filing. Trilaciclib is not expected to be on the market until 2019 at the earliest, CEO Mark Velleca told The News & Observer in 2016.

The company has accumulated a deficit of $65 million and has $47 million in cash or cash equivalents on hand as of the end of 2016. The company’s revenues have so far only come from government grants related to research.

G1 listed the financial firms J.P. Morgan, Cowen and Co., Needham & Co. and Wedbush Securities as the underwriters for the IPO. The underwriters will have the option to purchase up to 937,500 additional shares for a period of 30 days after the IPO.

This will be the first IPO in the Durham area in 2017. Last year, Dermatology company Novan raised $51.9 million in its IPO and pharmaceutical services company Patheon raised $640 million from its IPO.

Read Next

At internment camps where China forces up to 1 million ethnic minority Muslims to give up their language and religion, detainees are sewing sportswear that can end up on US university campuses and sports teams.